EUGENE, Ore. -- (Dec. 1, 2010) -- The University of Oregon Sustainable Cities Initiative (SCI) is being honored by a national nonprofit organization working to restore and renew communities.

The Partners for Livable Communities will award one of its highest honors, the Bridge Builders award, to SCI in recognition of the program's interdisciplinary engagement of scholars, community leaders and project partners.

The UO's Sustainable Cities Initiative integrates research, education, service and public outreach around issues of sustainable city design. SCI works at a variety of scales, from regions to individual buildings actively seeking solutions to sustainable city design problems. SCI organizes a number of educational initiatives annually, including an expert-in-residence program and the Sustainable City Year (SCY) that teams students with city officials to plan for sustainable futures.

The Bridge Builders award will be presented Dec. 7 to the three co-founders of SCI -- UO professors Marc Schlossberg, Nico Larco and Robert Young -- at the Partners for Livable Communities Celebration of Vision and Community Spirit in Washington, D.C. The trio will join other honorees including the chairman of the board of Bank of America, and Peter Calthorpe, an internationally recognized urban planner.

"The award from the Partners for Livable Communities recognizes the importance of what we're doing at the University of Oregon to change the way higher education serves the public good," said Schlossberg. "SCI and the more than 10 disciplines collaborating in the project are creating something innovative that others can follow to change their communities."

The award comes on the heels of several other honors for SCI recently. The program was selected as the only American finalist for the Globe Award for Sustainability Research and last year received a Special Achievement in Planning Award from the Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association.

In addition, SCI is part of a consortium that was recently awarded a Smart Growth grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to further the livability and sustainability agenda of the Eugene-Springfield region. This was the only grant awarded in the State of Oregon, and one of 45 grants awarded across the country.

More information about SCI is at: http://sci.uoregon.edu.

Contact: Karen Johnson, AAA Communications, (541) 346-3603, karenjj@uoregon.edu
Source: Amy Hause, Program Manager, (541) 346-3582, amyhause@uoregon.edu

Links:
http://sci.uoregon.edu
http://www.livable.org

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